Online marketing

ecommerce website design

Ecommerce website design,

if you’re selling anything—whether that’s sneakers, salad dressing, or something in between—you need to hop on board the ecommerce website train. An ecommerce site offers you the chance to build your brand, connect with more customers, and sell more products—but only if you’ve got the right website design.

Web design is critical when building an ecommerce website. Not only does your site have to look good and feel on-brand, but it also needs to drive your website visitors to take action and, you know… buy your products. But how, exactly, do you do that? How do you design the kind of ecommerce site that will have products flying off your virtual shelves?

When it comes to designing an ecommerce website, simple is always better. The more elements you have on the page (Colors! Banner Ads! ALL THE POP-UPS!), the more it takes away from the entire point of the website—closing a sale.

You don’t need a ton of bells and whistles on your ecommerce website—all they do is act as distraction. Keep your design clear, clean, and simple—and keep the focus on the sale.

2. Make branding a priority

When it comes to shopping online, people want to buy from established brands—not faceless ecommerce sites that look like a front for trying to steal your credit card information.

If you want to build the trust you need to drive serious sales with your ecommerce business, you need to put some serious thought into your branding. Your branding is like the DNA of your ecommerce business; it’s who you are as a company, what you’re about, and how you’re different from your competitors—and it plays a huge part in building a connection with your audience and driving sales.

If you want to get the most from your ecommerce design, take the time to define your brand—and then infuse that branding into your design. If you’re not sure who you are as a brand, that’s ok! You’re just going to want to do a little business soul-searching before you get designing. Ask yourself questions like:

If my brand was a person, who would it be?

If I had to describe my brand in three words, what would they be?

What makes my brand different from other ecommerce shops out there?

What do we do better than anyone else on the market?

Once you know who you are, you can work it into the branding of your ecommerce site. And that branding? It’ll help build trust with your audience—and drive serious sales in the process.

3. Think like a website visitor

If you want your ecommerce website design to connect with your audience, you need to think like your audience. Ultimately, there are just a few things your potential customers want in an ecommerce experience—a site that’s easy to navigate, well-designed, and makes the process of shopping easy, straightforward, and hassle-free.

And if you want your ecommerce shop to succeed, you’d better give them those things.

During the design process, put yourself in your visitor’s shoes. What kind of layout is going to be easiest for them to navigate? How can you organize your products in a way that makes sense for the end user? How can you simplify the checkout process?

When you think like your customer, you can anticipate what they want from your ecommerce store—and then design your site in order to meet those needs.

4. Use color to your advantage

Choosing the colors for your ecommerce site is about more than just saying “Well, red is my favorite color, so…let’s make all the things red!” Color is an extremely powerful tool—and if you understand the psychology behind color, you can use it to your advantage (and drive some serious sales in the process).

Different colors can inspire different feelings, emotions, and actions from people—so, if you want your ecommerce site to convert, you need to use those color inspirations to your advantage.

So, for example, if you want people to make a purchase, make the purchase button stand out with a bright color like red. According to color psychology, red inspires feelings of excitement and passion, which are driving factors behind spending—and studies show that making a button red can increase conversions by a whopping 34%.

Or, if you want to up your credibility, incorporate blue into your web design. Blue is not only a universally loved color, but it’s also been shown to increase feelings of trust, making it a go-to in the business world (there’s a reason the color blue appears in more than half of all logos).

The point is, color is one of the most powerful tools in your design toolbox—and if you know how to use it, it can have a huge impact on your ecommerce design.

5. Use plenty of high-quality images

In the world of web design, it’s common knowledge that images increase conversions (for example, one recent case study showed that incorporating more relevant images into a website design increased conversions by over 40%). And that’s even more true when it comes to ecommerce.

No one is going to buy a product sight unseen. If you want people to buy your products, you need to show them what they’re buying via high-quality product images.

Getting professional images of all your products (and having images of your product from multiple different angles) goes a long way in building confidence and trust in your customers. If they feel confident that they know what they’re buying, they’re more likely to make a purchase. But if there are no images of the product they want to buy (or just a single, low quality image), they’re going to feel more hesitant to make the purchase—and your conversions are going to tank as a result.

Do yourself a favor and have plenty of high-quality images of whatever you’re selling on your ecommerce site. Your conversions will thank you.

Image Caption Design: Techniques and Trends

Image captions are an often-overlooked element of Web design. They’re often thought of more in terms of function than form. As long as they include the proper photo credits or identifying information about the image subject, not much more thought is given to them.

But image captions are a great place to add a bit more style to your website or to give some unique insight into the subject of the image. Whether the captions are for photos on a news website or design samples in a portfolio, they present an opportunity for reinforcing the overall look of the website. When done properly, they can even add more visual interest and become a distinguishing trademark of a particular brand or website.